Principal Software Engineer – Java

Role overview

Responsibilities

• Lead backend feature design and delivery using Java, Spring Boot, and microservices.
• Collaborate with the architect on implementation plans, feasibility, trade-offs, technical risks, dependencies, and design gaps.
• Apply architecture, security standards, engineering best practices, design patterns, SOLID principles, and clean code.
• Build and review REST APIs and scheduled/background jobs, including failure handling and recovery.
• Collaborate on code reviews, problem-solving, feature delivery, and database design, queries, transactions, and migrations.
• Apply cloud architecture, application security, and performance optimization practices.
• Use AI-assisted tools for coding, debugging, refactoring, tests, and documentation while reviewing output for quality and security.
• Troubleshoot application, database, networking, performance, and production issues; mentor developers and coordinate with QA and DevOps.

Required skills

• Strong Java 17+ knowledge, including collections, generics, concurrency, multithreading, JVM fundamentals, object-oriented programming, and SOLID.
• Understanding of data structures, algorithms, Big O, Spring Boot, REST standards, design patterns, and clean code.
• Experience designing and troubleshooting distributed microservices, resilience, service communication, and data consistency.
• Knowledge of cloud components, networking, gateways, load balancing, deployment, security, and monitoring; experience with Azure, AWS, or GCP.
• Ability to design relational schemas, optimize SQL, and understand indexing, transactions, and schema changes.
• Working knowledge of HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, TCP/IP, TLS, JWT, secure API communication, caching, rate limiting, and performance tuning.
• Working knowledge of messaging systems such as Kafka, Azure Service Bus, or similar, and Quartz Scheduler or similar.
• Practical experience with AI coding tools such as Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or similar, including critical review of generated code.
• Ability to collaborate with architects, discuss technical trade-offs, raise design concerns, mentor developers, and conduct code reviews.

Good to have

• Experience with database synchronization, reconciliation, and cross-system data consistency.
• Familiarity with Flyway, Liquibase, Redis, or equivalent tools.